You Are What You Eat
by CardboardCreative
Summary: Through the span of their relationship at Shiz, Elphaba and Galinda share a series of lunches. Bookverse, Gelphie friendship drabbles.
1. Insinuation

Discalimer: **I don't own Wicked, sheesh. Yo mama owns Wicked.**  
Note: **There are a few write ups that I've been sprucing for posting, and I thought this one collection was especially interesting in terms of character relationships. One might even call them drabbles. Might.**

- - -

Shiz University's was always teeming with students, of whom piled up at the elongated, metal tables faced in rows adjacent to the buckets of food, or the hoards that stood in groups, or the lines of those whose hunger induced impatience. Galinda enjoyed lunch in the cafeteria, as it combined two of her favourite elements of Shiz life. All of these students who knew her name- and this was many a diverse amount- and admired her illustrious goodness made sure to say a few words in passing, be it gossip tidings or greeting. The scent of freshly concocted cuisine wafted in through the breeze of an open door, the flavours seeping into her nostrils and awakening her mind to the concept of lunching.

The cafeteria was positively buzzing at noon, those who were gathering a gaggle of other peers to stop by a pub in town even visited to recruit company, others remaining long enough to retrieve their lunch and latest student body news. The noise they created gave the impression of twice as many sitting down to their meal than there literally was, that is, is ones ears ached, and Elphaba somehow managed to reserve an entire half a table to herself.

"Why, Miss Elphaba, I do believe you are gobbling that soup," remarked Galinda, gripping her tray with dainty hands, peering down at her roommate with a feigned concern.

Elphaba stopped hunching over her bowl to look up at Galinda, amused at their perfect eye-level, courtesy of Galinda's suffering stature. "I believe the preferable term would be scarfing," she corrected politely, decidedly slowing down the furious pace of her spoon, "as opposed to comparing me to a turkey."

"I thought scarfing would be those hideous things you attach on your head," the blonde giggled impertinently, already accustom to Elphaba's indifference. Their rooms had been one for a semester now, and they were on speaking terms despite their dislike for one another, finding means of defence to the other's jibes.

Elphaba restrained herself from mentioning that both gobbling and scarfing were features Galinda performed on various male students at Shiz, but snickered to herself instead. "Oh, and now you've gone and ruined your lunch," Galinda sighed disdainfully; referring to what she thought was a sneeze from the green girl.

Elphaba blew gently over her tin teacup before taking a small sip. "I believe it would be you who is to blame for that," the green girl smiled sweetly. "In fact, your staying any longer that it takes me to inform you would put off my appetite for this evening's dinner, and perhaps all the way to tea on the morrow."

Glinda huffed. "If you don't want me around, then fine," she stomped her foot, whirling around to join her clique of prudes, who were eagerly awaiting the blonde, and whatever gossip she would offer.

However, Elphaba finished her soup at a pace much slower than when she began, forgetting that essay that was cause for her initially fervid rate of consumption. After all, she could potentially scald her throat, or, on the off chance, even choke to death- and then who would be around to bother Miss Galinda in that painfully precise way she did?

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**Well... who wants to review? Oh, you do. Yes, I could see why, you don't have to- painfully so, eh? Well, I... Yes, but- Stop yelling about how much you want to review and do it already!**


	2. Heckling

Disclaimer: **Um, mine Wicked is not. Simply.**   
Note: **Another exciting installment of the passionate adventures of... lunch. Enjoy.**  
- - -

The day was gloomy and wet, loosened and mucky cobblestone walkways slowing down the inhabitants of Shiz University considerably, through a sudden depression due to the unfortunate weather. The forecast predicted an afternoon that would be sunny and tranquil, and in turn, most students who had prepared for lunch alongside Suicide Canal proved an especially irritable mood as they munched on their sandwiches.

Galinda wasn't interested in what was being placed upon her lunch tray, being far more preoccupied with scanning heads rear to her, trying to locate a permanently grouchy, green skinned patron. Once the green girl was spotted- as always, with bony shoulders hunched inwards as the girl's head was bowed- she fearlessly marched up, tray in hand, and plopped down opposite on the empty half of the table that was always seemingly reserved for Elphaba.

The green girl's eyebrows rose on her forehead in surprise, halting in the steady chewing of her food and lightly placing her textbook on the table face. "You wanted something, Miss Galinda?"

"Where were you last night?" Galinda interrogated sternly, fixing her glare on Elphaba to avoid catching eyes with anyone else. Certainly she would be beckoned to amend herself when this was over, but being wealthy corroborated adequate in most situations one went against the grain. It was a brave turn of events, even for Glinda, to be fraternizing with the likes of her roommate, yet, in retrospect, bravery was not a requirement in the past.

"What is it of your concern as to where I was?" countered the green girl, calmly folding her spindly fingers on top of her open book.

The blonde wasn't expecting to be challenged. "I… uh," she stumbled, cursing herself as Elphaba's sharp features showcased her amusement.

"Last night," coaxed the green girl, taking a steady breath, "I was minding my own business. With that evidence in mind, I believe it would be most fitting that you should borrow a page from my book right now."

The blonde gave a dainty shrug, her shawl-covered shoulders lifting by obviously practiced means of elegance. "That's about the oddest request I've ever received, but if you insist," Galinda noted, leaning forward and reaching to tear a closely knitted page from Elphaba's test, but the green girl sensed disaster and snatched the book back. She cradled it to her flat chest as Glinda continued. "If Ama Clutch is to be held responsible for you as well as I, she is required to know your whereabouts. Last night, you did not, uh, informher, and so I am merely relaying her message."

"Is that right?" Elphaba wondered absently, sighing when the once faltering blonde showed no signs of easing up. "Well. You may inform _Ama Clutch_ that I lost track of time in the library, whilst researching the ethnographic study of social marginalization in Quadling Country."

"You can tell her yourself," Galinda sniffed, inspecting her nails.

"I suspect you're cantankerous because I interrupted your beauty sleep," Elphaba suggested, fingering lettuce that peaked out from the crust of her sandwich. "Unless it's the weather that is causing you to stutter."

"It wasn't because you… Oh!" Glinda slapped the table spontaneously in the height of her anger, tray jumping at the impact.

She watched as Elphaba's jaw muscles strained, always fascinated at her peculiar skin and how she functioned in it. Even through her insufferable nature, Elphaba had an endearing quality of experience at life but inexperience at the pleasures of it that drew Galinda, but the Gillikinese proper wouldn't be caught dead admitting it, just as she wouldn't be caught dead wearing or approving of Elphaba's drab attire.

She was peering at Galinda expectantly. "You're going to give me wrinkles!" the blonde cried out, bouncing from her seat and expertly tossing her hair. She ambled away from the table, then from the entire side of the cafeteria, not once looking back as her heels clanked upon the hard flooring, grey sky cackling in a sudden lightning storm.

- - -

**Was that incredibly amazing and cool, or what?**


	3. Thoughtless

Disclaimer: **But... why** would** I claim to own Wicked? It doesn't make much sense; it wouldn't make me money... Would it?**  
Note: **So many lunches, so little time. //Sighs// I like this one chapter more than the other two.**

**- - -**

"You insist on being everywhere at once, and I, for one, find it highly annoying," proclaimed Elphaba, glaring up from her book to cast the blonde the dark expression.

Galinda smiled sunnily, long eyelashes fanning her cheeks. "You seem to be the only one."

"Isn't there a gaggle of more interesting people waiting for your attention somewhere northeast of your current, unappreciative location?" Elphaba drawled absently, her eyes skimming the last few lines of a page before gracefully flipping the page, hardly touching the parchment. She masked her surprise with apprehension as Galinda chose to take up a seat directly across from her at the, as always, empty table with apathy.

"Your reference to a direct route is rather laughable, you know," noted the blonde, busy stabbing her salad with the wooden prongs of her fork; only to be disappointed that wood was not as versatile as silverware, and dually angered that she was not permitted to provide her own. She watched as Elphaba's eyes flew athwart the pages of a book sprawled out across a lunch tray rather than lunch, tilting her sharp chin as her eyebrows creased ever-so-slightly. Her uneventful pine lips parted slightly as she breathed the words.

Glinda involuntarily shivered.

"Your choosing my presence over theirs becomes the bigger paradox in this situation," remarked the green girl, still preoccupied as she patted a line Galinda could not read overturned, and neatly bent a corner before flipping the page.

"This is not a matter of choice; rather, of necessity. If I am not seen everywhere at once, how might my popularity excel?" Galinda daintily lifted her pinkie to rest beneath her chin in manner of a prime socialite.

"Wasting your time with me is certainly not an effective approach," mumbled the other girl, her index and ring fingers, like unripe twigs, stroked up and down the side of her neck- an unconscious habit. It reminded the Frottican greatly of tactics utilized to draw attention to rousing portions of the body by seductresses, so she settled for staring at her salad.

"I am simply distancing myself, in a desperate sense," explained the blonde airily. Elphaba's astute eyes rose from her page to meet Galinda's for a moment, for so short a time that the girl practically started in her seat. She went on, "For the shortest of periods. I do provide them with sufficient blether from our little chats. Just of your most interesting parts, really, such as what you eat." She pointed briefly with the finger beneath her chin. "It'll be the salad which makes you green."

Elphaba tilted her head droopily. "You are the one who is preoccupied with salad." Her monotonous statement conveyed her indifference towards remarks on the colour of her flesh, having heard it all her lifetime.

The blonde rapped her wooden fork on the table. "I am," admitted she. "Although, there might be an intangible force that dominates your pigment from all green things in the world. I mean, there is plenty of grass around. Say it somehow transforms the lettuce's pigment to your own, like a giant, sucking- what's it called? Photosynth-"

"So long as you be inconsiderately foolish, I have to ask you to relieve me of your company," interrupted Elphaba, her voice much lower than the blonde's, yet the expression of her their eyes meeting was a plea for quiet. Galinda detected the unexpected presence of grief, startled simply because she had never before witnessed it.

Her mouth opened and searched words a few moments before she spoke. "Oh… Miss Elphaba, I apologise," she breathed, the words delicate against her lips, although her face was still devoid of sincerity, so as to please those who might have been watching from afar. "I was being insensitive. I was trying to be droll, but it was politically incorrect."

A hand repositioned to the inner bindings of her book, fingers fiddling nervously. "Miss Galinda," Elphaba regarded, somehow fondly, "in our society, _I _am politically incorrect. It is what you said that was thoughtless."

- - -

**AHAH! I caught you trying to REVIEW! Well, carry on, young one- this is how the fanfiction is done.**


	4. Unfortunate

Discalimer: **Alms, alms for a desperate writer...**

Note: **I'm writing up a detective-flick-meets-a-John-Kander-musical play for school, and it'll take a while, seeing as this is simultainiously exam season. Sea Lion Woman might have a rough patch of non-updates, but it will soon be up and running by the time next week is out. In the meanwhile, enjoy this next installment.**

- - -

"Riddle me this," Elphaba recited, towering over Galinda as she sat demurely in the shade of an oak tree, dress sprawled out neatly. "What is Galinda Arduenna doing without company at the most convenient hour of congregation? This must be the one anomalous day of each year when honey tastes salty and Animals forget how to speak."

As she spoke, the green girl's legs weakened, as though she had lost gravity, and she sunk down a safe distance from Galinda, whose back was pressed against the enormous, crusting trunk of the tree. She was also, the blonde noticed, a strategically reassuring distance away from the shores of the Canal, and barely bobbing her head in the shade to be so.  
No turned leaves fell from the trees, nor the Canal's waters ebbed as all of Shiz seemingly stood still that day, in such a way that suggested time itself was immobile and waiting for the air to bring forth a wind and continue life. There were some instances at the university where it appeared as though nothing exist elsewhere.

"Everyone requires space now and then," reasoned the blonde, "why can't I have mine?"

"Because that right does not belong to you the moment you acquire your status of social success," Elphaba stated matter-of-factly, and Galinda silently agreed. The green girl pointed to her bent knees, "May I sit here?"

"You've basically made that decision by yourself," the blonde grumbled, tearing a hunk of bread from her lunch and pressing it to her mouth. "Have you come here to enjoy the shade or wheedle some type of reply from me?"

"The shade is lovely this time of afternoon," Elphaba nodded, gazing out over the Canal with contentment, and Galinda envied that ability to adapt.

The rigid girl produced a plump, oxblood red apple from her shoulder bag and wordlessly sunk her teeth into the flesh, shifting her gaze towards the blonde before concentrating on what would be the space between air and oxygen. For a time, they ate silently, Galinda uncaring to the possible assumptions of passers by, for Elphaba was sitting so far by the edge of the shade that it were as though they weren't sharing lunch together. Were they not sharing lunch together?

"You made a clever elucidation the evening after last," the green girl called suddenly, some minutes later, only having consumed a third of the fruit and playfully holding it near her lips, as though her teeth were simply in intermission.

Galinda waved her hand. "That navy and brown are horrid autumn colours?"

"That the 'attributes and implications of deity linger'," Elphaba quoted specifically, startling the blonde at the impeccable recollection. "I interrupted your train of thought, and I apologise."

The Frottican didn't know how to appropriately respond, used to bouts of bickering and spontaneous agreement only. Now that it appeared Elphaba was readying for an ordinary conversation, she wasn't certain how that kind of interaction attuned between them. "Oh- but," stuttered Galinda. "Elph- Miss Elphaba… I wasn't making any particularly groundbreaking arguments-"

"No, but you were," Elphaba protested, her back straightening in her excitement. In this posture, she looked stunningly regal, thick braid cascading down her poised back, long, pointed nose upturned slightly in way of thought. "Hardly anyone shows faith in Lurline anymore, but their broken perception of evil in Lurlineism is still widely practiced, and thus far, a source of mass confusion of taboos, false investments. Erroneous condemnation, even."

The green girl took a breath, preparing to continue, but Galinda held up a lace gloved hand and winced as though being wounded a little more with each of Elphaba's passing words. "My father has taught me of the Unnamed God, Miss Elphaba, and that is where my loyalty lies."

Elphaba peered up at the blonde, her nostrils flared, and, quite possibly, her lips pulled into a disappointed pout. Galinda tilted her head slightly to inspect the other girl, whose eyes narrowed as though the underlying connotations of all that was Galinda were presented in the blonde's expression. It seemed a contagious method, as Galinda caught herself doing the same, but Elphaba lost interest in their staring contest and flopped down into the grass, belly up.

"That's unfortunate," she breathed, before falling into a bout of silence. Galinda figured that passers by wouldn't be staring meticulously, and the green girl possessed an earthy hue enough to camouflage herself from the blonde's presence. In that respect, they were free to spend the hour together, Elphaba barely moving from her possibly slumbering position, and Galinda gazing at her with lackadaisical curiosity.

- - -

**There was a writer and her... pen-ife... and you wan-ted to ree-view her...**


	5. Lies

Disclaimer: **Copyrights are good, coffee is great, but I'd... really just like to sleep now that it's past two am.**

Note: **This chapter is full of action! Each character is is so animated, and on their feet, YOU'LL read it standing up! So much ACTION! Yeah!**

- - -

Elphaba's sharp tongue was stinging during all occasions of chastisements, especially when it came to thoughtless misdeeds whilst they were both in their room at once, and especially when it came to the window. On days were rain clouds shrouded Shiz University skies in a film of grey, and water droplets hit the glass with soft thumps, the idiosyncratic, young, lanky thing would make a point of locking the window, perhaps tighter than intended, into its wooden frame, and stuffing a tattered black scarf into the bottom for reasons unknown. It would seem, Galinda hoped for the sake of her sanity, that the ragged old thing was used for this purpose only.

The Frottican had been chastised twice already in her plight to prepare for a luncheon off-campus, though near cancellation due to the weather, with Elphaba in the room. She had approached the window and fondled the black scarf while stealing glances at the roommate whose eyes were intensely preoccupied with the thick textbook, yet somehow always caught Galinda in her tracks. It were as though Elphaba could interpret her thoughts, and not only from this experience; if ever they chose to meet eyes, there was a odd, sort of hollow knowing that reflected from the black of the green girl's irises.

Whipping away her fingers as though touching fire, the blonde would be met with a sharp glare, and a stern, "I must ask you to respect my provisional decision." It was not as though Elphaba was a vital character to Galinda, but something about her judgements were so poignant that the blonde did not dare decline past the status of a socialite.

Instead, she left the dilapidated scarf to its socket and floated to her vanity, a two eyelids and a few eyelashes shy of being prepared to leave. With an applicator in one hand, and a tiny container in the other, Galinda closed one eyelid in order to ameliorate the other. She leaned forward, a slight bend of the spine; though the many skirts below her waist lifted with the effort, and her singular focus hazed out in the vanity, attracted to the enticing red at the other end of the room.

Elphaba held a half-eaten apple with the tips of her fingers, forearm extended away from the apple, as though such colour didn't belong in her vicinity. Once Galinda was laid victim to this particularly insipid sight, her eye focused on nothing else. Her own, pink and robin egg blue reflection was but a blur.

It just seemed too absurd to the blonde, that a human being could be cursed with such attributes as Elphaba. It leached deeper than flesh tone, unfortunately, to that of the girl's very demeanour. Was it not contempt for her own self, if not one for livelihood in general, which this girl settled so sourly and isolated?

Her eye still squinting, a trigger activated in Galinda's brain, her freshly painted rouge lips parting in order for sound to form words. "Miss Elphaba," she began, not softly, and yet, not cross, "don't you ever wish your skin was white?"

Although the Frottican did not usually take into account the sensitivities of others, especially in the case of a seemingly heartless girl, her jaw snapped shut unsettlingly with regret; for this was not the intended enquiry. Initially, it was going to be, "Why is it that you cower from all forms of precipitation so?"

Galinda's other eye opened tentatively as she watched the thin wrist propping up Elphaba's textbook slacken slightly. The green girl tilted her head as though she might be considering a question never before explored, stiff braid not moving from its position over the opposite shoulder.

After what was a short beat the blonde expected to be filled with the ear-stinging, thunderous castigating, Elphaba's neck straightened as she replied to Galinda's reflection, quite simply, "No."

The following silence carried through as Galinda gathered her purse and headed out the door, heels clicking the hardwood louder than necessary, perhaps in the rush to escape an embarrassment that Elphaba could perhaps detect. It was not kind for a lady's ego to marinate in her mistakes, especially of verbal degree, as a lingering indigestion might.

At the same time, Elphaba set down both apple and book once alone, resting her fingers on a gaunt cheek with the stunning realization that this was the first time her lying to another individual had not been of an insignificant scale.

- - -

**Isn't it fun that the dialogue consisted of less than two full sentences? Mm-mm, good! **


	6. Kindness

Disclaimer: **Mmm, do I own Wicked? Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe on weekends...**

Note: **You know what I love more than playing the role of a prostitute named Clementine Burns in my own play? Updating. Here yeh go.**

- - -

The very height of injustice was reached on a chilly, cloudless afternoon in a quaint classroom of Shiz University's literature department, and five girls were bursting to verbalize the very conviction. And yet, the brawn of authority was enough so to subdue each into silence likening that of a mouth sewn shut. They sat at four opposite corners of the room, the muffled sounds of complaining was quiet and did not travel across the high walls of cascade about the ceiling, although every few minutes, Professor Granovetter would raise his great deformity of a jutting brow to scan the girls inquisitively.

Galinda Arduenna sat nearest to the entrance, captivated in a great fantasy of escape, although the plan was not so diabolical. It was simply to scuttle away with intention to tend to her lacerated pride while Granovetter was busy marking papers and sipping from a large cauldron of tea. She sat slovenly in her seat in order to properly cross her legs beneath the adjacent desk, surprisingly too short for her knees, and twirled chunks of yellow curls between her fingers boredly.

At the other side of the room, Miss Shenshen sat with poised shoulders and a lowered head, perhaps in disgrace or slumber. Miss Milla sat near the front, evidentially fiddling with the material of her skirts and casting helpless looks back and forth like an athletic ball from one girl behind her to the next. A Gillikinese stranger Galinda had acquainted only the previous day was lolling her head from one open palm to the next with her elbows propped against the desk top, her magnificent rose and eggplant coloured skirts spilling from the back of her chair to expose an amount of ankle just shy of rudely.

It had been one of the many threats for detention, yet the first exploitation of one, with which the blonde found highly dishonourable for a teacher of literature; for what other use did literature possess than to preoccupy the dreary and aid those with memory loss?

Apparently, it also kept Galinda from lunch, which would have been her first meal of two days anyhow. The night before was spent in such good jest that the girl stayed up a blasphemous amount of time past curfew and slept in, scrambling for her first lecture while Miss Elphaba arrived from her second, barely casting so much as a glance to her flustered roommate. What's more, her rushed thoughts forgot to remind Galinda of the increasingly unfavourable temperature.

The others were adorned in petticoats, while the blonde refused to clutch herself by the shoulders, as one did when forced to sit in a cool, concrete entrapment and become consequently chilled to the bone. When a great thumping came at the closed door, Galinda let a spastic shuddering shiver snake down her body with an excuse of being startled, even if there came only two thumps, enough to indicate presence, yet not demand it; it was certainly the consequence of bringing a hard fist down upon the reinforced entrance.

Professor Granovetter wordlessly, without so much as a glance, pointed to the Frottican who sat closest to the doorway, indicating that it be her who connected them to an outside afternoon they had been depraved of for an hour and counting. Obviously, this man was pious when it came to literature.

The blonde did not see her queue to jump from her seat, having been concentrating on the ground. "Miss Arduenna," he boomed suddenly, still staring deeply into his cluttered desk, either preoccupied or attempting to conceal his Neanderthal-esque brow. "I would be much obliged if you would remove your skirts from your chair and see to the door."

With all eyes on her, the blonde nodded and shivered, scuttling towards the door and rattling its knobs as chilled fingers were apt to do upon cold metal. Outside, the unenthusiastic sun beat down upon Galinda's nose, sending a burst of warmth on her front, and reminding the girl that drastic changes in heat often burdened her with headaches.

Yet, she stood in the doorway and met eyes with no one, for the knocker had surrendered to an unmoving barricade and left, or was simply a prankster. The former proved appropriate, as Galinda looked down just in time to save a bright red apple from being trampled upon. It was placed neatly on a parchment, so as not to taint its flesh, which shone in the afternoon light like a ruby large enough to drive her father into impoverishment. The apple proved the fantasy ruby's equal in value to the girl, her stomach responding in a nasal whine. She looked around uncomfortably and retrieved it, the ripe fruit temperate beneath her fingers, begging her to be hasty and take a bite.

"Why are you so immobile child?" came Granovetter's gravelly voice. He had looked up from his work, accompanied by the stares of her fellow prisoners, so she pocketed the apple and turned around to face them.

"I thought perhaps that my shoe required buckling," she shrugged, handling the door and bringing it back to its socket.

The professor nodded severely. "The very epitome of survival. Sit."

And there the girls stayed for another prevailing hour, time dragging on by each clock-tick, which seemed to consume all of five regular clock-ticks that occurred outside the room. Galinda thumbed the fruit inside her pocket, not daring take a bite and render herself guilty; of what, she was not informed. She imagined its glowing colour, the juice within it spilling into her mouth once she took a bite.  
Remaining, though, was who had set the apple down. Was it initially meant for Galinda? A rational explanation was that a student or faculty member was meant to deliver, and simply left it upon the doorstep with more productive activities to attend to. And yet, there was a lingering familiarity of those two abrupt knocks; the two which indicated an arm tightly wound, a brisk walk and unsmiling face.

By the time Galinda had arrived to Crage Hall was evening, having attended her last class of the day, shamed that the one in between was missed on account of her own foolishness. She had eaten the apple there, its succulent sweet scent and fresh taste enough to send her into throes of joy. Nevertheless, she ate it slowly.

Miss Milla had thrown her back against the wall as though the green girl were infectious, waiting until Elphaba had passed them before passing a snide remark. Galinda had kept walking, not noticing her roommate until Milla's back practically cracked the wall's plaster. Their eyes met, and Galinda could detect traces of sweat at her dark hairline, the whites of her eyes veined red, clearly dry from one thing or another.

When Galinda walked in the door, she was invaded by the pleasantry of a recently extinguished fire, one that must have been raging in the hearth for a while to have stewed such a lovely feeling in the girl once frozen. She slept exceptionally well, but Elphaba tossed constantly for the thin burns which tormented where sweat had pooled earlier, regretting her act of kindness with the resolve that kindness was defeating.

- - -

**It's a tad long and dialogueless for a drabble, I know, but it seemed necessary in respect to character analyzation. The dialogue and wit will return soon, just bear with it. In the meanwhile, how'd it go?**


	7. Vulgarity

Disclaimer: **Oh please, it pains me to even delve out pennies.**  
Note: **I thought there should be a little more excitement in this chapter. The dialogue hath returned, but I fear the 'friendship' part of the collection might have died a slow painful death. Oh, well.**

- - -

Galinda was not partial to her heels, grand as they were whilst worn with her autumn dress. It was a much better subject to concentrate on, with its blood red aura that became all the more complimented by her lipstick and shoes. However, she did not favour the shoes, even if they were a necessity of this season's vogue. So she decided not to look at them- how splendid was a woman who kept her head held high to suggest confidence and equanimity.

Noticing the girl beside her trudge along in long-toed, Victorian lace-up boots, the blonde thought herself the better of the two. Elphaba usually walked in the manner the blonde presently portrayed, steady and headstrong, but it would seem the moment brought frustration to the green girl. If it weren't enough, her lithe feet began to walk in pace with Galinda, sharp face turned to address.

"Miss Galinda," she greeted, suggesting a lingering, unasked question.

Galinda turned her face to glare at the green girl for a moment, her eyebrows twitching in confusion as to whether they should raise in surprise, or one should quirk with smugness. "What?" was her reply, swift and simple.

Elphaba tilted her head to one side, opposite collar bone protruding with the effort. There would never be a moment of peacetime between the two, when each were tranquil and willing enough to strike a truce. "You're walking at a most frantic pace," the green girl observed. "Perhaps you find yourself in need of assistance?"

"I believe it was you who had a question dancing on her lips," Galinda shot back.

Elphaba grunted in agreement. It seemed more of a hum, really, as though all the coarseness the green girl possessed would remain forever in her eyes and words. "Ah, yes," she skipped a step to keep in pace with the girl a head shorter than she. "Would you happen to know of the whereabouts of Master Avaric?"

"At this very moment?" enquired Galinda, slightly puzzled over the words. Was it not widely known that Elphaba and Avaric despised each other with the passion of, dare it be mentioned aloud, devoted lovers, though in opposite form?

"Perhaps next year, if you would be so kind," the other girl replied sarcastically, smirking with a curled upper lip.

"I am on my way to lunch, Miss Elphaba," snarled the blonde.

"As I wish I could be also, if it weren't for Master Avaric's absence," Elphaba shrugged, once again proving her skills at composure with a mastery many could never practice enough to obtain. "You see, we have been partnered horribly for a life sciences escapade."

Wishing to be rid of the sight of walking alongside Elphaba Thropp, Galinda decided the girl deserved a reply. "One might think he would be sitting along Crage Hall's shore of the Canal, but one can never be sure," she supposed, then paused. The use of 'life sciences', and 'escapade' became an open door for embarrassment on the green girl's part, and Galinda did not want to part without gaining dominance over their conversation. "You know, with Master Avaric's reputation preceding him, one might deduce that there is something especially vulgar on your mind," she snickered.

Keeping a steady glance ahead of her, Galinda was not prepared for Elphaba to swoop ever closer to her, Galinda's knees buckling in the shocking closeness that she had yet to see, never mind experience the green girl engage in before. Elphaba kept her upright by snaking a hand around the blonde's waist, her verdant, thin lips almost brushing her ear. No one seemed to notice but Galinda.

"Is there something especially vulgar on _your_ mind, Miss Galinda?" Elphaba asked, and to the Frottican's further surprise, there was nothing sexual about it, despite their compromising position. The green girl's voice might have been throaty and quiet, yet it was more of a challenge than a suggestion.

Elphaba let go, and they kept walking in the same direction, Galinda taken aback, and even doubtful, of what just occurred. The blonde looked at Elphaba and sputtered, but the green girl just smirked at her, eyes darkened in the same defiant tone her voice had taken on. She slowed in order to turn around and head back to find Master Avaric for their undoubtedly slow-paced partnered assignment, calling out, "Watch your step," rather complacently.

Galinda scowled, barely registering the green girl's parting words, until her shoe sank into more than just the cobblestone steps on Shiz's walkways. She lowered her head, finding one shoe buried in the sludgy consistency of horse dung and held in a screech, her cheeks warming into a scarlet blush.

She shook off her foot, feigning calmness; grateful that these weren't shoes she adored, or even cushioned her feet comfortably. She was also grateful to be caught with her foot merely in dung, however foul, rather than her waist seized by the one person who could absolutely annihilate her reputation.

- - -

**A sloo of chapters will be added to make up for not updating Sea Lion Woman as long as I have. As mentioned before, exam season is here, not very queer, and not even very pleasant. I'm working on chapter thirteen now, but don't advise anyone to expect it sooner than two weeks.**


	8. Breakdown

Disclaimer: **Know what I hate more than foreigners? Cats. And copyrights. Oh, the copyrights are killers. XD**

Note: **Two down, one more exam to go! When I mentioned a sloo of drabbles before, I was eluding to an approximate amount of three. Kind of like the amount of exams this season!**

- - -

When one is appalled in discovery of an insect invader in their home, crawling along with their spindly, hair-like legs along one's boot, the instinctual reaction to shake it off and replace ones boot overtop of it instead is inevitable. It's the shock factor- such a foreign being! Yet, while other diminutive, frilly girls were busy squealing in corners while their fathers or maidservants whacked life from the trespasser, Elphaba was captivated by the elegance of such creatures. They did not move; rather, they scuttled, danced, were blown across the floor and were forced to utilize senses humans had abandoned for the ones in plain sight. If Elphaba had suddenly been revoked of her privilege of sight, she would prefer to wander life with a keener sense or space or scent.

She was not appalled by the sight of such animals, but the reaction of most people, whose boots were left scraping the remains of the freshly slaughtered from a sole that signified so much weight as to the arrogance of people. Insects were gross when they moved, and their guts were ghastly when they were deceased. It was indeed a difficulty to explain to other little girls that the colourful matter oozing from the exoskeleton was, in fact, the same thing that preserved their own livelihood, as well.

The same thing went for other considerably disliked walks of the evolutionary scale. Everything that is extracted from a biotic, comprehensive being is a fascination, not a gag-reflex. The green girl was musing over the fact that her lunch, whatever it might be composed of, uncannily resembled what it looked like to gaze at the insides of an amphibian- something she had refused to conduct purposely. Could the creature not have died of natural cause before she was to grasp a scalpel and plunge it into the remarkably smooth flesh, and cut along its belly to the point where she may observe what programmed a frog to its behavioural and survival attributes? Was it no worse that her refusal had to be shouted in hysterics to the one elder whom she had undivided respect?

"I heard you were thrown out of life sciences," greeted Galinda, her springy curls reflecting sunlight in a pleasantly hygienic manner, although her face was contorted into a smirk. She leant against the edge of the long, vacant table where Elphaba sat, staring down at her lunch tray without the faintest memory of how to eat. "I heard you were thrown out quite shamefully."

The green girl's eyes rose slowly to meet her roommate's face, although her chin remained stationary. "Smugness is not becoming of you, Miss Galinda," she droned. "In fact, you come off appearing rather _purple_."

The blonde was not about to showcase annoyance in this time of celebration, of which recent news that basically claimed her win in what she referred to as the battle of two roommates. "Is it true that you accepted a fail in exchange to not harm a toad?" she pressed, ghostly grin bordering her lips.

Elphaba's chest heaved a guffaw, although nothing in her face indicated mirth. "It was a frog," she corrected faintly.

Galinda waved her hand in an obvious display. "Frog, toad, fruit fly- the difference?" The girl tossed her hair expertly. "All I know is that you had an emotion breakdown."

"There was no such occurrence," snapped the green girl, staring back now at her lunch.

Galinda flashed a momentary smile; a business-as-usual grin, one that indicated her social victory. She pretended to inspect her pristinely cut fingernails, casting a sideward glance at her victim. In this way, Elphaba thought, was the Frottican not like a black widow spider: quick to strike, with relentless applications of poison? No, she was much too brightly clothed.

"You practically exploded at Dr. Dillamond, if my sources, of whom where seated in the very classroom, about live toads?" snickered the blonde. "In my experience, Miss Elphaba, in observation of social dysfunction in those lesser than myself, it falls under the category of an emotion breakdown. Gone ballistic, as it were."

Long, pointed eyebrows furrowed with anxiety as Elphaba stared down at her plate, correcting quietly, "It was a frog."

Galinda rolled her eyes, not realizing that Elphaba's expression was pained and perhaps tearful, if only she were to gaze upwards. "Look, it is not as though I condone pulling open dead things and rooting around their… Ick," she gagged, the thought upsetting her stomach. "I am only rising to the opportunity to reap revenge for last week."

Elphaba's eye twitched and she cocked her head to confront her assailant. "What was last week?' she asked blearily.

"You very well know what-" she ended abruptly, voice having risen in a shaky manner. Blinking frantically and checking her surroundings, Galinda leaned in to speak softly. "You very well know what occurred last week!" she hissed.

Thinking back, all the green girl could remember was a quick confrontation instigated by herself as to the whereabouts of Master Avaric. "My witty, rhetorical nature?" she wondered.

Galinda frowned. "It's not so dashing, Miss Elphaba," she chided. "And so, I am rising to the opportunity. Of you and your mental breakdown."

Elphaba smirked into her open palm. "I thought it was an emotion breakdown a few moments ago."

"Say nothing, Miss Thropp Third Descending, for I have the upper hand in this situation, and there is nothing your library of books can do to rescue you now," Galinda declared with a bit more satisfaction than should have been allowed. The blonde was struck with an image of Elphaba burning her book collection on the Frottican's bed dressing, yet shook it from her mind.

It did not appear that Elphaba wished to be rescued, for how her usually poised shoulders slumped in her seat, head hung in a defeat she seemed readied to accept. "You know when boys are little- and I mean, just tiny lads outgrowing their shorts- they'll pull the legs from spiders or fling around frogs, or… It's the same basic concept, Miss Galinda. I just believe there's a vast divide between pulling apart the living for amusement and dissecting the deceased for discovery."

Galinda was sitting on the table by now, her legs crossed in a sophisticated manner to deflect attention from her perching a tabletop. She was watching the green girl speak to her lunch tray. "It's remarkable," she breathed.

Elphaba blinked and peaked up at the blonde. "What?"

"That you _care_ so much for a dumb toad," Galinda giggled, shaking her head in disbelief as she dismounted from the table and walked away, her heels clattering on the cafeteria floor as she went to join her gaggle of girls awaiting news.

The green girl tilted her head to inspect her meal from a different angle, yet she seemed to be watching the blonde leave all the same. "What's more is how much you don't," she whispered, finally staking the food with a fork. "And it was a frog."

- - -

**There was going to be an entire explanation about little boys stepping on frogs, but it was decided that stomachs should be kept light. Know what? You should review. More drabbles cometh tomorrow.**


	9. Romeo&Juliet

Disclaimer: **I have... dreams of owning Wicked. Perhaps even pwning it. Alas, such dreams will never become reality.**  
Note: **As promised, second of third. Such a great response for the last chapter- psych! **

- - -

"That wouldn't happen to be the one where the girl feigns her death, and her beau poisons himself over her slumbering body, would it?"

Galinda barged into the room with her chest fluctuating out of breath, curls unable to reach concealment from the gleam of noon sunlight, both of her hands balancing finely sewn shopping bags stacked to the brim. Her eyebrow rose to her roommate in inquiry, yet her gay smile indicated lingering thoughts of the lunch hour.

Elphaba sat reclined on her bed with a thin book in one hand and the pip of an apple in the other. She gazed up at her roommate and nodded lethargically. "Upon her awakening, she is devastated enough to kiss his lips for the last traces of poison to knock her off, as well."

The blonde had begun a ritual of laying out her new belongings onto her bedspread, revealing boxes from each bag one by one, observing them and appreciating them in face value before storing them away.

She grunted. "I do so enjoy a book themed with romance, not that I often waste time upon books. However," she piqued, though expression stoic as she sorted, but her tone contradictory, "I do find it so incredibly poignant. Never thought you the type to delight in romance."

Elphaba sneered, her thin, verdant lips peeled back to bear teeth. "I don't," she said solidly. "In fact, I find it idealist and unrealistic to devote one's time to write such poppycock, based mostly on hormonal fervour and enticement."

"Such may be true, but it's still passionate," argued the blonde, busy observing her findings. "Is it a crime to write about passion?"

"Actually, I think a platonic relationship possesses all the more passion," the green girl said, causing Galinda to pause with immobility while she swung her feet over her bed and slipped them into her lace-up boots. Flinging her wrist, the green girl flung apple core into the appropriate bin and slipped her book into the bag leaning against a leg of her desk. "It's much heartier, and based on trust, while love surrounds ornament and a sales pitch."

"Better a sales pitch for love than one for paper weights," sung the blonde melodically, moving back and forth from bed to closet to put away her new things.

"Friendship is either sturdy or temporary," Elphaba announced with certainty. "How can love measure up when it always seems to concern only presently?"

"The concepts between fictitious relationships and reality are that friendships are exactly like the other kind of relationship," Galinda called from within her closet space. "Both are often done to convenience one another."

"Perhaps in your situation, relationships of convenience are all you may rely on, Miss Galinda," supposed Elphaba, collecting her notebook and inkwell from her desk in preparation for a lecture.

"Oh Unnamed God, what do you know of relationships, Miss Elphaba?" came the aggravated, gruff voice from the closet.

Elphaba smiled faintly and clasped her hands, leaning against her desktop to observe how her side of the room might require reorganization. "If you are to squint, Miss Galinda, you will discover that I have borne the aggrieving brunt of relationships for their honesty, as not often festered in those of convenience. Am I incorrect?"

"If I say you are wrong, will you continue to speak?"

Elphaba smiled to herself. "For quite some time, yes," she replied politely.

There came a sigh. "Then, Miss Elphaba, you are completely correct in every aspect. Please continue to… bear brunt," concluded the Frottican awkwardly.

"You'll find that you shifted the subject of conversation to relationships, rather than the separation of love and friendship," Elphaba said uncomfortably. She gathered her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Perhaps that corroborates my point."

Galinda sighed and leant out from the closet to retaliate, only to discover that Elphaba had left. Alone in a closet with a collection of coordinated dresses, skirts, gowns, hats, and embellishments, the blonde instinctually, and rather habitually, erased the issue from her mind.

- - -

**And so ends this installment. Next up: skirt chasing (and it's not Elphaba who is conducting it- nor Galinda).**


	10. Charming

Disclaimer: **I own a cat, I own a computer, a few articles of underwear...**  
Note: **Another chapter added! Perhaps one more shall be added soon, but one expects Sea Lion Woman to be updated at last. Duelly, I am currently writing a Sweeney Todd parody with a co-writer, which will be posted both on and LiveJournal. Coming to a monitor near you!**

- - -

Suicide Canal was surrounded by a natural park dominated by the flora of grasses and deciduous trees, the weather often wispy, although it did not stagger students. The constellation of benches scattered throughout the park were always occupied, although Avaric enjoyed his wiggle room. He sat in the middle of the bench, one leg crossed over the other broadly enough to expose sock, the opposite arm stretched out on the rim of the bench's back. Impatiently, he shook the leg set on solid ground and popped pecans into his mouth, which originated from a satchel from his inner breast pocket.

On the particularly overcast day, it would seem every student had a class to attend, save for he on his vacant lunch break. Nut after nut, he sat chewing and watching the people rush by. Few dared attempt to sit on the bench, but he would simply extend an arm more or balance his shoe over his knee to produce a sizeable crossing of the legs.

Observing the park was demanding labour, especially when there was no one to ridicule other students with. However, it did seem one lecture had concluded, and a crowd of students were moving every which-way, an especially appealing group approaching his. Motivating as they were, Avaric made sure his coat was not crumbled with pecans, and that his smirk was charming instead of a plainspoken mean-spirited.

"… And as I'd mentioned before, it's wasn't the most appropriate of occasions to mention my father," Galinda was saying, moseying along unhurried to relay her story.

Pfannee giggled with a roll of the eyes, appearing girlish and uninterested at once. "This is a prime example of why, time to time, the key to my Ama's locked room… with my Ama within… is misplaced," she said, as though reading instructions.

The two were accompanied by four other girls, two of them Missus Shenshen and Milla, completely without Ama or other male supervision.

"Excuse me, ladies, but would it be too tardy to register for acceptance into the conversation?" he asked politely. "My, Miss Shenshen, if you were not the most exquisite sight to behold."

Shenshen smiled coyly, concealing an eye behind deliberately placed rust-coloured bangs, her pale skin blushing. "You're trying to soften me," she accused pleasantly.

"Of course he is, that's all he thinks of," scoffed Pfannee, obviously offended for having not been the object of Avaric's recent affection. The blonde boy prided himself on having that effect on women, however they denied it- it was no secret that society girls relied on compliment. "For we should move on and pretend as though he is a nonexistent waste of air."

Avaric furrowed his brow and clutched his breastbone. "Ouch," he cried playfully. "You have wounded me beyond repair, Miss Pfannee."

Pfannee smirked. "As was intended." She turned to her group, "Come along. I have a one hundred and twelve person date with Professor Kibaki, as well as you, Miss Galinda, while the rest of you attend lunch."

"And what a generous tipper the man is!" shrieked the blonde, rousing a round of laughter from the other girls. She snuck a glance at Avaric and flashed a charming, glowing grin. The boy could do nothing else in the moment of his captivation but return the favour.  
"Miss Galinda," he called after them. "If you were not lovelier than I first thought!"

Galinda kept moving along with the others, but turned around and walked backwards in heels that rather worried the boy. She was grinning and called out to him, "You've been gravely mistaken to have thought I don't grow lovelier by the hour, Master Avaric!"  
After they had left, the boy returned to popping pecans into his mouth, grinning, and waiting for something spectacular to dawn upon him. There seemed nothing better to do than remain lethargic and stationary until his satchel emptied.

In a flurry of billowing cloak, Miss Elphaba was appeared with her canvas bag slung over a shoulder. Perhaps she had been as indolent that morning as he, for her dark hair had been freed from its regular braid, and it accommodated her wiry spectacles quite well. Her cheekbones were flattered and her nose was attractive and slender, colour sparkling in an aura of daylight. Avaric rubbed his rough chin, then decided to dust off his front again so as not to appear shoddier.

"Miss Elphaba, you've got to hear this insane notion I've just stumbled upon," he called out as she approached his bench. "This park is full of oxygen, so none must be cut off from my brain when I declare you suddenly appear ravishing as opposed to other days."

Upon passing, the green girl shot Avaric a gruelling look, her dark eyes slits among pursed lips. "Perhaps you should be monitoring where your blood is flowing from your head, jackass," she jeered, storming off and not once looking back.

Avaric sprawled back onto the bench, having expected a comment thrown back at him, yet not swiftly as the girl proved to be. There was another group of girls approaching, this time with a boy attached, but Avaric hummed and reached into his pocket for the remaining pecans. Twice burned, and he would have to purchase oven mitts.

- - -

**Avaric is a peep. He's like Lucius in the Voldemort regime that is Wicked. Especially with that hand shake in the musical- gets me every time.**


	11. Secret Garden

Disclaimer: **To own, or not to own? That it the (literal) several million dollar question.  
**Note: **I return to school on the morrow, but something tells me there will be much more inspiration to update Sea Lion Woman yet. Also, for Harry Potter fans, there be an Azkaban oneshot in your midst...**  
-

Elphaba had always thought the term 'secret garden' was a euphemism for a woman's sexual anatomy, parodied in the allusion of innocence and submission. Besides, it was not as though the garden was aptly surreptitious, applying the technicality of its public purpose. Often, those employed to cook for the faculty and students would wander in and pluck up what they required, but for days on end, it would remain devoid of humanity; a cornerstone of the ages and the very centre of the Great Disinterest youth were taking to trades. Not that Elphaba was about to begin ploughing.

Providing her seemingly never-ending supply of sour, fist sized apples was a large tree at the cobblestone intersection, to which she would keep her distance to avoid its shedding on mostly unused, rickety benches. Three walls protected it from the rest of campus- the one gaping block of atmosphere intruding with its open draft.

Truthfully, she enjoyed it here- it reminded her of the expansive grounds she used to dwell before becoming a nomad in Quadling Country. She would tuck her legs beneath her skirts and roughly sketch the garden and its protective walls.

Today, though, it was not a school employee who wandered into the garden. It was Elphaba's roommate herself, all pink high heels with the dainty little strap and bouncy blonde curls and ivory pigment. It did not startle the green girl so much as it frightened, and then, as the Gillikinese girl descended a walkway originating from a door in the back of the cafeteria, enraged her. Before having to ask, Elphaba knew what was occurring; Galinda was successfully invading her life and mind, rotting out her eyes with supremacy over her surroundings, and now to the sacred space that belonged to her. There was no place Elphaba could hide!

"You're trespassing," she lied nonchalantly, peering over at the wall she was sketching, each block ideally placed so as to distract her eyes from looking up, although the rest of her had.

Galinda nodded and approached still. "Yes, but if I am, you would be, as well. It'll be like our little secret."

Secret. The word was inequitable. "Similar to the occasion which I walked onto an uncouth scene with you and a Three Queens boy in our dorm room?" smirked the green girl, carefully replicating the apple trees shadow on the wall.

The blonde ambled past Elphaba's bench and stuck out her foot to toe a large carrot begging to be unearthed, rusty orange poking up from the soil. "Your threats are hollow to me now, Miss Elphaba," warned the girl without a trace of solemnity. "Hollow as the head of a statue."

The green girl rolled her eyes. "One might surmise that lasting, historical statues would be solid." She paused, "You're not here to steal the carrots, are you?"

Galinda looked up from the carrot distractedly. "Pardon? Oh, course not. It's well known that this garden is unofficially yours- something about enchanting the foliage to surrender their colour- and so I was sent to agitate you, and myself."

Sighing, Elphaba set down her book and lead. It couldn't be that she came here often enough for others to notice, could it? "Still?"

Galinda gave a slight shrug of the shoulder, ladylike as she tossed her hair and headed back toward the bench. Elphaba wanted dreadfully to force the girl into a hat. "Honestly," she said, her voice missing its usual high pitched titter used in public. This was no surprise to the green girl, as she was not an asset or prospect of any kind. "I ask myself the same thing. It's been outlined clearly that I'm not fond of these games, nor of you."

"Nor do you squeeze much gossip from me, either," added the green girl jadedly.

Galinda breathed a giggle. "On the contrary, you're horrific at watching your words. However, you've simply outgrown your scandal; you're green, you read books. If only Misses Pfannee and Shenshen would realize the same."

"Perhaps the lack of purpose in their lives is worse than first implemented," accentuated the green girl, unsettled by speaking aloud in the garden. "Then again, what would I know, being only a simple green fan of reading."

"They think… I don't know, that I'm able to wheedle the most from you. As though I'm your friend or something," concluded the blonde tentatively, simultaneously kicking at the loose carrot and worriedly glancing back for Elphaba's reaction.

The green girl frowned, feeling her facial muscles strain though the corners of her mouth were slack. "There are better ways for the both of us to spend this free hour," she meant to say, attempting to conceal the whine that spilled out in its place.

Galinda turned on her heels with a jerk and gazed at Elphaba from beneath lidded eyes. "Well, are we… friends?" she wondered, genuinely confused.

Elphaba rolled her eyes and again and took up her notebook. Lead in hand, she roughly began her sketch once again, never quite satisfied with the interpretation of a brick's ridges, or the frilly girl that stood in her view. "The word _friend_ is too broad," spat the green girl. "Someone should invent varying degrees of its implications."

Galinda swayed in her skirts, seeming to consider the conversation only lightly. "Perhaps you should, if you feel so inclined."

Nodding her head in the blonde's direction, Elphaba felt her eyes lid coyly. "Only you would be able to spread it to others' mouths." She ceased scribbling on her page. "We're cordial, but too often in one room to be considered acquaintances."

"Half-friends," shrugged Galinda, looking up expectantly, as though she were a dog awaiting a treat from her olive skinned master. Was this a ruse performed on her parents, lovers?

The green girl straightened her shoulders unconsciously with the air of superiority, smirking at the other girl's optimistic keenness. "Three quarters of a friendship, if not less," she decided with finality.

A breeze blew from the exposed corner and drafted Elphaba's ankles. The blonde seemed to feel it, too, in a shudder, and it was then that Elphaba noticed the apple clutched tightly within her fist; one of the exact nature from her own supply.

Galinda quirked an eyebrow at her, almost smugly. "Three quarters, one fourth… it's all the same if it's not whole, Miss Elphaba. Like three quarters of a man- how does one even that out? You'd best create a more original word."

She scoffed and retreated back whence she came.

-  
**Where are those bright, opinionated reviewers? You're all so delighting! ...Was it my face? It's my face, isn't it?**


	12. Bleeding Green

Disclaimer: **Gregory Maguire should have a holiday named after him.  
**Note: **This is an update for the sake of it- not the best work in ths collection, but the author thought it might be an intriguing, literal study. If not, just literal.**  
-

Back in Pertha Hills, it was not uncommonly known that Galinda often fell victim to trouble. Back where the weather was ideal; light and fluffy snow gracing the ground and the top of your hat in the pristine fashion of delicacy, or the wind was still so as not to blow one's hair out of style. Back where it was not a shame to act oneself, or, at least, that false sense of security allowed a child to be brought up properly.

_Back where this would never happen_, Galinda thought, disgruntled by her misdoings.

Her book bag would not have jammed between the cafeteria's brick wall and the cement bench she once sat if it had not fallen. It would not have fallen if Galinda- who decided to play completely innocent in the situation- had not been obscenely distracted by boys parading by while her eyes were unfocused with daydreams. The boys would not be parading around in the loud, shrewd manner they did if it were not for the professor who let them, and Galinda, from a lecture for reasons unknown- and Galinda would not have been daydreaming if it were not for a certain Gillikinese assistant she had met there.

Both of those things would not be affecting her if it weren't for the adamant campaign to change her timetable, so that her lunch hour would correlate with Misses Pfannee, Shenshen, Milla, Kartana, and Jazeera (renown for scandalous behaviour).

Why she had left the comforting seclusion of her beloved patrician town, Galinda could not remember.

She maladroitly tugged at the strap, of which had taken a while to wheedle from the depths from the bench, tentative due to her symmetrically filed fingernails. Not usually posing as such a weak being, her chambermaid having hauled her from stomping around mud piles to an embarrassing degree; this was simply an unprepared, inauspicious moment in the middle of Shiz's most populated area that would bring indignity for the remainder of her days. Especially when no one was coming to her rescue- she daren't peek over her shoulder to catch a handful of students giggling at her expense.

She braced either heeled shoe on the bench and wall, and repeatedly tugged at it. Her movements were quick, her arms jerky and straining faster than anticipated. The blonde cursed her privileged upbringing as her under exercised biceps convulsed with pressure.

Hairs away from admitting defeat, Galinda stood upright and allowed a moment of self-pity to seep through her flesh. Like a trained soldier, prepared for a battle of uncertain predetermined victory, she exhaled negativity in an audible sigh, and braced her feet for one last effort. Instead of liberating the book bag, Galinda's entire upper body jolted backward and her legs gave way into a slip.

Instead of falling through air and hitting cold cobblestone, her skull likely cracked and tainting the ever-delicate hue of her curls red, Galinda's back thudded into something soft. Steady arms encircled and pulled her torso upright; Avaric's toothy grin burned into her eyelids as the girl blinked.

"About ready to explode, are we, Miss Galinda?" he teased, undeniably dashing.

"It's disturbing how minimal your thought process can be," came the agitated response of Elphaba, the deep sea colour of her fingers on Avaric's white jumper almost iniquitous in the face of his mighty bravery. "I don't want to have to put up with you any more than-"

Glaring at the two, the green girl's crude expression softened for a moment. She gazed down at Galinda's hand, drawing the blonde's eyes, as well, only to discover that the cement bench's coarse surface had torn her flesh. Tiny pinpricks of pink swelled to blood droplets on the side of her hand, and before the blonde could whip her hand away, Elphaba had her by the wrist, inspecting the damage.

"Go to the infirmary," she instructed softly, looking distractedly at the jammed book bag.

Galinda rolled her eyes, barely registering the quiet stinging in her hand. "It's not so bad." She snickered, "Don't think yourself so courageous."

Elphaba gently let go of the Frottican's wrist and wandered to the bench, where she took hold of the bag's strap and tugged in the same direction Galinda had. "It's useless," called the blonde, busy being fawned over by Avaric, who had assumed position of nurse. "I'll just have to do without homework."

Avaric smirked. "That's too good of you to bear such a cruel fate, Miss."

Tugging the bag upwards, Elphaba carefully guided each bump protruding the bag's material in order to flatten it through segments of cement. Galinda watched, abandoning Avaric's flirting, with lips pursed. Had she not thought of that? She silently chastised herself as Elphaba's willowy movements disentangled the book bag and wielded it with a stoic expression. For a moment, she let the strap hang over her open palms, then offered it to the uninjured side of Galinda.

"Go to the infirmary," she repeated. "You see the way your blood leaches? That's deep enough to scar."

Galinda's breath caught at the thought, and her expression melted into fright. "Unnamed God- Do you suppose there's a way to fix it without scarring?" Elphaba closed her eyes and smiled slowly, shaking her head. "_Well_?" prompted the blonde anxiously.

The green girl opened her eyes, the hue of her flesh appearing less usual than most days, if it were possible, against the contrast of the whites and brown staring down at Galinda. She nodded towards the injured hand the blonde held in front of herself like a severed limb, the blood now dribbling down her arm.

"It's a wonder," Elphaba said, "that Galinda Arduenna bleeds red." She leered, "I owe Tibbet five pounds."

Galinda scowled as the green girl left, dragging her assignment partner along, who mumbled something that sounded akin to, "Better red than green." It was unrestrained comments such as those which made her flirting with Avaric nothing more than excessive flattery. She readjusted the book bag over her shoulder, seemingly undamaged from the plight to free it, and avoided smearing her sundress with blood on the way to Shiz's infirmary. For a while, she wished Elphaba was mute, so that her nimbleness could be used to fix Galinda, rather than be a mere fleeting art used to impress and humiliate her.

-  
**Oh, reviewers. At this primary stage, you are but readers (and greatly appreciated ones, at that), but your level of involvement could raise to such high degrees! It is greatly appreciated when you leave your thoughts, so, by all means**.


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